The Falling Sky

My first novel ‘The Falling Sky’ is published today by Freight Books. This is the latest stage in a long journey because I started writing it several years ago, and I still can’t quite believe that it actually exists as a book. I wrote it because I wanted to convey what it feels like to be an astronomer, studying unimaginably distant objects but still having to wrestle with the complexities of everyday life.

The protagonist of the book, Jeanette, works on the Big Bang theory which tells us how the Universe was created and developed. She finds this more straightforward than coming to terms with her own history, and a childhood that has been defined by loss and silence. Her attachment to the Big Bang theory is partly due to its appeal as a story of origins; it gives her life structure and order. She doesn’t realise how much she relies on it until she discovers something that may undermine it…

I realised as I was working on this novel, that writing fiction can be similar to doing science. I had set up the premise, or the initial conditions for the experiment, and I had to fulfil the premise or conduct that experiment by writing the novel. There was only one way of writing it that was right. Several plot developments had to be axed because they felt wrong. Even though fiction is not real, it still has to be true in both the writer’s and the readers’ heads.

There’s already been one very nice review in the Daily Mail, and I’ll be talking about the book, at a couple of events this month:

Sunday 14th April, with Tendai Huchu at Aye Write! in Glasgow

Wednesday 24th April at Looking Glass Books in Edinburgh

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4 thoughts on “The Falling Sky

  1. I’ll be fascinated to read this (just found out about it via the New Scientist review), as elements seem rather similar to a novel I started after graduating in astrophysics from Edinburgh some years ago, called ‘Blue Shift’. Must be something in the air up Blackford Hill!

    I published the first (more or less self-contained) half as an e-book last year, as a bit of an experiment in self-publishing –
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spaceboy-Blue-Shift-ebook/dp/B007LZ39RS/

    Hope your book sells better!

    1. hi Tim – that sounds really interesting! I shall download and read it. Are you still writing? And when were you at ROE?

      1. Hi Pippa,

        I’ve been writing professionally since leaving Edinburgh in 1995, but mostly tech & business journalism, and mostly as a freelance – sadly, I found that pretty much destroys any impetus to write fiction if there’s not an immediate sale…

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